well noted, was offered a job there. Within a year he was to become manager, a phenomenal achievement for a 17-year-old. He was in every respect then a success – and in the music business, no less. He even found time to keep playing with the Escorts for a while. But until his dying day, Gerry Evans never knew of the period when he had been usurped in his own band.
Had he had the opportunity to think about it, Evans would have been able to pinpoint the moment his path in life diverged from his best friend Keith’s. It was the day early in ’62 when the pair of them were admiring Cecil Gee’s window display as usual, the gold lamé suit still on prominent display as if daring someone to be foolish enough to buy it, and Keith walked in and put a £2 deposit down. As the store clerks measured Keith up for a precise fit he turned to his friend and said, “See? I told you I’d buy it.” Every week for the next two months, Moon went into Cecil Gee and put another two pound down out of his wages. The suit was going to cost more than the deposit on his drum kit, but that was all right. His father had bought the drums and now it was up to Keith to look the part.
“It was real dedication,” said Gerry. Though he personally could never have worn the outfit, he could understand someone doing so if they were in a rock’n’roll band. “But where Keith was different was as soon as he got it he wore it all day long. He was walking round the streets in it. In those days, it was unheard of.”
Keith’s sister Linda remembers him crossing Chaplin Road to show Michael Morris the suit and stopping the traffic. Gerry saw this party trick in more vivid detail.
“Chaplin Road was a dark street on a winter’s night,” recalled Gerry. “We used to walk down that street, and he would hide behind a hedge, and when a lorry or car would come along he would tear across the road, so that the car picked him up in the headlights and put its brakes on. And of course to pick up this little figure in a gold lamé suit in your headlights at night would be frightening. But that’s what he used to do for fun.”
There were plenty of variations on this theme. “He used to have this trick of walking across the road when a car came, and he’d get as close as he could and then fall over, as if he’d just been pole-axed,” recalls Colin Haines. “The driver would get out, thinking he’d knocked someone down, and we’d all run and look worried and the driver would come across and say, ‘Are you all right?’ and Keith would jump to his feet and say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ How he got away with it I’ll never know. That’s how he was, harmless in one respect and yet irritating in others.”
It was the same way up at the Wembley Bowling Alley, alongside the ice rink up by the stadium. Keith would go bowling not so much to play the game with other people but to play games
on
other people. He’d hone in on someone he’d never met before, study their mannerisms, and just when they were about to bowl he’d turn to the others and say, ‘Hey, watch him, watch what he does,’ and start imitating the hapless player. “Keith had one of those infectious laughs,” recalls Colin Haines. “And he’d get us all laughing just when somebody was going to throw a ball. I’m surprised we didn’t get filled in.”
With Gerry working full-time in the music store, the gang that spent weekend afternoons in the West End was now more or less all the Escorts but with Keith in Gerry’s place – just as it was with the live shows. They’d come down on the Piccadilly line to Holborn station, and Keith would head straight to the store Gamages, with its entire department dedicated to magic and jokes and novelties. If Keith couldn’t smuggle out some false teeth or fake spiders or the like, he’d put them to some use within the store. When they were all thrown out, as they inevitably were, it was down to Denmark Street and more mature dreams of a career
Had he had the opportunity to think about it, Evans would have been able to pinpoint the moment his path in life diverged from his best friend Keith’s. It was the day early in ’62 when the pair of them were admiring Cecil Gee’s window display as usual, the gold lamé suit still on prominent display as if daring someone to be foolish enough to buy it, and Keith walked in and put a £2 deposit down. As the store clerks measured Keith up for a precise fit he turned to his friend and said, “See? I told you I’d buy it.” Every week for the next two months, Moon went into Cecil Gee and put another two pound down out of his wages. The suit was going to cost more than the deposit on his drum kit, but that was all right. His father had bought the drums and now it was up to Keith to look the part.
“It was real dedication,” said Gerry. Though he personally could never have worn the outfit, he could understand someone doing so if they were in a rock’n’roll band. “But where Keith was different was as soon as he got it he wore it all day long. He was walking round the streets in it. In those days, it was unheard of.”
Keith’s sister Linda remembers him crossing Chaplin Road to show Michael Morris the suit and stopping the traffic. Gerry saw this party trick in more vivid detail.
“Chaplin Road was a dark street on a winter’s night,” recalled Gerry. “We used to walk down that street, and he would hide behind a hedge, and when a lorry or car would come along he would tear across the road, so that the car picked him up in the headlights and put its brakes on. And of course to pick up this little figure in a gold lamé suit in your headlights at night would be frightening. But that’s what he used to do for fun.”
There were plenty of variations on this theme. “He used to have this trick of walking across the road when a car came, and he’d get as close as he could and then fall over, as if he’d just been pole-axed,” recalls Colin Haines. “The driver would get out, thinking he’d knocked someone down, and we’d all run and look worried and the driver would come across and say, ‘Are you all right?’ and Keith would jump to his feet and say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ How he got away with it I’ll never know. That’s how he was, harmless in one respect and yet irritating in others.”
It was the same way up at the Wembley Bowling Alley, alongside the ice rink up by the stadium. Keith would go bowling not so much to play the game with other people but to play games
on
other people. He’d hone in on someone he’d never met before, study their mannerisms, and just when they were about to bowl he’d turn to the others and say, ‘Hey, watch him, watch what he does,’ and start imitating the hapless player. “Keith had one of those infectious laughs,” recalls Colin Haines. “And he’d get us all laughing just when somebody was going to throw a ball. I’m surprised we didn’t get filled in.”
With Gerry working full-time in the music store, the gang that spent weekend afternoons in the West End was now more or less all the Escorts but with Keith in Gerry’s place – just as it was with the live shows. They’d come down on the Piccadilly line to Holborn station, and Keith would head straight to the store Gamages, with its entire department dedicated to magic and jokes and novelties. If Keith couldn’t smuggle out some false teeth or fake spiders or the like, he’d put them to some use within the store. When they were all thrown out, as they inevitably were, it was down to Denmark Street and more mature dreams of a career
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